


Loathe the Way They Light Candles in Rome

by ursulashandkerchief



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Barricade Day, Bittersweet, Canon Era, M/M, Vaguely Catholic themes???, Weddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:07:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28332114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursulashandkerchief/pseuds/ursulashandkerchief
Summary: “Married to whom?”“I’m not sure.  I suppose my father would eventually pressure me into marrying some bourgeoise.  It’s just as well,” he said lightly.   “I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone but our Monsieur Combeferre.”“I never imagined I’d die as a Monsieur.  Doctor Combeferre, perhaps.  In another time, perhaps, Doctor Courfeyrac.”—Courfeyrac and Combeferre get married on the 5th of June, 1832.
Relationships: Combeferre/Courfeyrac (Les Misérables)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Loathe the Way They Light Candles in Rome

“It’s a shame,” said Courfeyrac. “I’d somehow always imagined that I’d die a married man.”

Combeferre looked up from the bandage he’d been rolling. “Married to _whom_?”

Courfeyrac blinked. “I’m not sure. I suppose my father would eventually pressure me into marrying some bourgeoise. It’s just as well,” he said lightly. “I can’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone but our Monsieur Combeferre.”

Combeferre gave him a wan smile. “I never imagined I’d die as a _monsieur_. Doctor Combeferre, perhaps. In another time, perhaps, Doctor Courfeyrac.” 

Courfeyrac laughed. “You would have married me, then, if it weren’t for the Church and the law?”

“Was that not a given?” Combeferre returned his attention to the bandages, tying off the roll with a piece of twine and adding it to the meager supply. 

Combeferre wouldn’t have expected Enjolras to pay attention to such a conversation when so much was at stake, much less care about it. He was caught off guard when his friend chimed in. 

“We’ve declared our autonomy from the king and his government.” 

Courfeyrac and Combeferre both looked up at him with the air of a pair of schoolboys who’d been caught sacking off their lessons. 

But Enjolras, it seemed, was not ready to write their conversation off as frivolous. 

“Why should the new republic not have its own law?” His tone softened as he looked from Combeferre’s pale, serious face to Courfeyrac’s. 

“If you were serious just now, I’ll do it. I’ll officiate.”

For a moment, both Combeferre and Courfeyrac were stunned into silence. 

“Tonight?” Courfeyrac glanced at Combeferre and then down at his hands, not trusting himself to meet his eye.

Enjolras walked over and sat down on a barrel. “I have a feeling it’ll have to be tonight, my friend.”

Combeferre nodded. “If Courfeyrac is willing—”

“Of _course_ I’m willing.” 

Enjolras studied them both for a moment longer, and then gave them a wan smile. “It’ll be done.”

* * *

Grantaire was ecstatic when Courfeyrac broke the news. “We’ll have to celebrate your engagement and your wedding all in one night, my friend. Perhaps we could break into Madame Hucheloup’s good wine—the occasion certainly merits it.” 

Courfeyrac laughed. “Perhaps. It won’t be much of a wedding—there’s so much still to be done and we can’t spare too much time.”

“Nonsense.” Grantaire threw an arm around Courfeyrac’s shoulders. “You’ll need witnesses, at least.”

“Are you nominating yourself?”

“God, no. I’ll let somebody else have that office. Me, I think I’m best suited to be Mother of the Bride. Which is…”

“Me, of course. You’ll give me away, then?”

“I’d be honoured.”

“What are you two planning?” Combeferre appeared on Courfeyrac’s other side.

He shot a guarded look at Grantaire—force of habit after years of caution and secrecy—and then leaned in to steal a kiss from Courfeyrac. 

“I’ve decided I’ll be the bride, darling, and a very difficult one at that.” Courfeyrac grinned. “Everything will have to be perfect.” 

“Of course.” Combeferre met the joke with a smile that was entirely earnest. 

“Any luck with Joly?”

“He’s agreed to be my witness.” 

“Wonderful.” Courfeyrac grinned. “What does that leave?”

Combeferre laughed. “A flower girl, I suppose, or a ring bearer?” 

Courfeyrac’s smile vanished like a candle flame that had suddenly been snuffed out. His eyes darted to the insurgents’ makeshift morgue, at the one sheeted body that was smaller than all the others. 

“No ring bearer,” he said. 

Combeferre looked down at the ground. “Right. No ring bearer.”

* * *

Combeferre’s coat was long gone, lost in the chaos of the barricade and the first skirmish. Nonetheless, Enjolras and Joly went back into the Corinthe with him to tidy him up as well as they could. Little could be done about the spots of blood on his shirt or the small cut on his forehead, but he’d washed his face and tried to make his red hair look neat again, and Joly insisted on retying his cravat for him. 

Combeferre took off his glasses and polished them with the sleeve of his shirt. He’d fiddled with them a minute ago and he’d fiddle with them again a minute later—a nervous habit he’d acquired as a teenager. 

Enjolras stopped him just before the party went back outside. 

“My friend,” he said, putting a hand on Combeferre’s shoulder, “I cannot think of a couple that more deserves to grow old together.”

Combeferre pulled him into an embrace. “Thank you for doing this, Enjolras. I cannot tell you how much it means to us.”

“I suppose I can’t wish you a long marriage, but I know it’ll be a happy one. I only wish I could do more for you.”

* * *

Outside, the insurgents had arranged a few bits of furniture that weren’t essential to their fortifications into a crude imitation of a church’s pews. All but three of the Friends of the ABC had taken their places: Enjolras and Combeferre were at one end of the makeshift aisle, waiting for the second groom and the so-called ‘mother of the bride’. Courfeyrac and Grantaire had not yet emerged from the café, and Bahorel’s absence from the festivities weighed heavily on the ‘guests’, most of all Feuilly, who had hardly said a word all night. 

Certainly, the Friends of the ABC had not been surprised when Courfeyrac and Combeferre announced their last minute engagement—Courfeyrac wore his heart on his sleeve, and so he and Combeferre hadn’t managed to keep their relationship a secret for very long. Combeferre had expected objections from some other quarter, but even the white-haired old man who had joined them in a soldier’s uniform had not complained, only pitched in to rearrange furniture. 

This was not a wedding like any Combeferre had ever attended. There were no orange blossoms or freesias to decorate the venue, hardly a venue at all; the improvised pews were packed with insurgents and rebels who had laid down their weapons for just a moment to play guests. There would be no champagne, no croquembouche, no big reception, and certainly no honeymoon. 

After all, there can be no honeymoon when there is no tomorrow.

But when Courfeyrac appeared in the doorway of the Musain, Combeferre forgot how to breathe. Like Combeferre, Courfeyrac looked a little worse for the wear, his shirt stained with blood and black powder, and neither Grantaire nor Courfeyrac himself had succeeded in taming his dark curls, but in that moment, Helen of Troy could not have been more perfect or more beautiful in Combeferre’s eyes. 

Combeferre had promised himself he wouldn’t miss a single detail that night, but the service itself seemed to go by in a blur. The lamplight lent Courfeyrac’s face a warm, otherworldly glow and while Enjolras spoke, Combeferre could not look at anything but Courfeyrac’s smile. 

"Courfeyrac and Combeferre,” Enjolras said, “have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?" 

“I have,” said Courfeyrac, without looking away from Combeferre. 

“I have,” said Combeferre. 

"Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honour each other for as long as you both shall live?"

“I am,” said Courfeyrac. 

Combeferre’s vision blurred, and he could not have said whether they were tears of joy or sadness. “I am.” 

"Are you prepared to, er, accept children lovingly… from God…” Enjolras trailed off.

“Best skip that one,” said Courfeyrac, grinning.

Enjolras cracked a smile. “I’ll skip that one.” 

“Courfeyrac, do you take Combeferre to be your husband? Do you promise to be faithful to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love him and to honor him all the days of your life?”

“I do,” said Courfeyrac. 

“Combeferre, do you take Courfeyrac to be your husband? Do you promise to be faithful to him in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love him and to honor him all the days of your life?”

“I do,” Combeferre whispered.

In the absence of real wedding rings, they exchanged their own signet rings. 

It felt wrong to experience such perfect, sublime happiness at such a bleak moment in time, but when Enjolras declared them married and Courfeyrac pulled Combeferre into a kiss, neither of them could have wanted to be anywhere else. 

* * *

The reception was as makeshift as the wedding, made up of whatever food and wine the insurgents had been able to find in the café. Still, the Friends of the ABC welcomed this brief escape from the gravity of their situation and the grim fate which hung over them. When Combeferre rose to give his toast. He raised his glass, his other hand coming to rest on Courfeyrac’s shoulder. 

“Thank you,” he began, and then faltered.

“Thank you. All my life I’ve never even dared hope for anything like tonight. What you’ve all helped us do means the world to me, and to—”

He looked down at Courfeyrac, who beamed up at him, glowing in the golden light. “And to my husband.”

Combeferre was silent for a moment, letting that word hang in the air. His hand stayed on Courfeyrac’s shoulder, as if his husband—his _husband_ —would vanish the moment he let go.

“I would rather die a married man,” Combeferre said, “Than live sixty years longer, ashamed and alone.”

And then he looked down and spoke to Courfeyrac and Courfeyrac alone:

“I love you.”

* * *

The newlyweds had no honeymoon, no wedding night. They fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, Courfeyrac’s coat wrapped around Combeferre’s shoulders, Combeferre leaning against Courfeyrac. 

He knew what the next day would hold, knew that neither he nor Courfeyrac would live to see another sunset, and yet somehow, as he fell asleep on the barricade with his husband’s arm around his waist, Combeferre was satisfied with the cards he had been dealt. 

**Author's Note:**

> I'll take Catholic guilt for 500. 
> 
> But seriously, thank you for reading! I haven't written fic in ages. I did promise a friend a less angsty modern AU companion fic to this, so stay tuned for that!


End file.
